WA ground parrot sighting a breakthrough

A critically endangered parrot that had its habitat decimated by recent bushfires has been spotted in a remote West Australian nature reserve for the first time in a decade.

Department of Parks and Wildlife staff spotted the western ground parrot in Nuytsland Nature Reserve, east of Esperance in the state's south.

There are understood to be fewer than 140 western ground parrots remaining in the wild.

Staff were surveying the nature reserve in the hope some of the small birds had escaped Cape Arid National Park during the bushfires that devastated the area in November.